Garage rock... sort of. Except perpetrated by... Jarvis Cocker?!? The deal is this: Once upon a time Jarvis Cocker could easily stake claim as having the hands-down sexiest most dangerously seductive voice in Britpop. He’s kind of a geezer now, and sounds not unlike the (also) older (also) lowered-pipes Bowie. This is also a much more rocky record than the stuff he did with Pulp (so, yeah, have you heard of this band, Pulp? their singer steals your booze and sleeps with your wife) -- at times, his voice is buried under sheer garage clang. Suffice it to say this does NOT sound like a Pulp record at ALL. Though, yeah, Cocker still beats out Arab Strap for innuendo any day of the week. And every so often he dips into his trademark whisper and it’s the same old shivers. A solid rock record anyway. Hey, the guy deserves to bang the drums for once. Just think, with a name like Jarvis Cocker, it’s a wonder the kid made it out of grade school alive.

try: 2, 8, 4, 5
FCC: 8 (but easily dodgeable)

1. garage rock. wonky off-beat guitar frighteningly reminiscent of a pinback riff. beachy chorus.
*2. hooky dirty guitar riff. kind of hilarious zombie callbacks. super suggestive lyrics. hooray.
3. barrelling, fast, clangy instrumental. some scattered lyricless vocals midway. sounds like space guns firing.
*4. slow, slurry, sweet twang. very central country electric. silly lyrics. vamps a totally beachy “i wanna be your lover”. reminds me of the stones’ faraway eyes.
*5. smooth, mid-slow, somewhat orchestrated big jangle sound. nice upfront pulp-like vocals. this song is about being shallow and proud of it. “i’m not looking for a relationship, just a willing receptacle”? amazing!
6. sax?! a fast blatty frantic swinger. breathless vocals in at 1:20. kinda overreactive.
7. slow padded set and piano. loud, but totally mellow. danger: swaaay alert.
*8. fuck yeah. a gritty ripper. malicious and splendid. takes ~20 sec to warm up. fade out the last (~15) seconds to skip the single FCC. it’s literally 3 seconds to the end. worth the extra vigilance.
9. fast shrill tinny clangy garage rock.
10. dirgey, ambient, grandiose. big vocals. kinda sounds like its title.
11. soft chill/cheesy disco backdrop. good old pulp-era spoken word kicks it off. on the whole? i mean, it’s a disco song. and it’s 9 minutes long. and it ends with a full minute of drone.